


The Dark is Not Cold

by intothemoors



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Angst, Gen, I am so sorry, Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 15:47:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12634209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intothemoors/pseuds/intothemoors
Summary: Jack gets trapped in Pitch's Lair with no way out, and the heat turned up. What happens is not good.





	The Dark is Not Cold

**Author's Note:**

> So.. 'Sup. I was using the RoTG script for some of this, because I'm that person that's like "if you're going to use canon dialogue, at least make it correct," and since I didn't want to just copy and paste the fucking script and be all "I wrote this!" so I tried my best. 
> 
> WARNING?: I guess I should put a slight gore warning

“Jack!”

 

Jack stops and looks around. “That voice, I know that voice.” Baby Tooth looked at him, worried.

 

“Jack!”

 

Jack jumped off the window ledge, the wind carrying him. He landed in the woods, stumbling, Baby Tooth following closely behind, chirping away.

 

“Jack!”

 

He took off again, trying to locate where the voice was coming from.

 

Jack and Baby Tooth went to a darker part of the woods, with more and more trees the deeper they went. He sprinted into the woods, Baby Tooth flying after him reluctantly as they entered a clearing. A bed frame, broken and rotting from the weather sat in the center, waiting.

 

Jack took a closer look, and realized that the bed frame was above a hole, so dark he couldn’t see the bottom. Baby Tooth chirped, pointing towards the general direction of the Warren.

 

“Don’t worry, there’s still time.” He responded, waving her off. She pulled at his hoodie, chirping frantically.

 

With his staff, he broke part off the frame, uncovering more of the hole.

 

“Jack!”

 

Jack looked at her, before jumping into the hole and Baby Tooth hesitantly going in after him.

 

Jack and Baby Tooth flew down the tunnel, until they came out into a cavern. Baby Tooth chirped anxiously, tugging at his sleeve again. “Baby Tooth, Baby... Come on!” He said as he brushing her away. “I have to find out what that is.”

 

He looked around at the cave, and looked around in shock at the many bird cages attached with chains to the ceiling. Every single one was filled with mini teeth. When they saw him and Baby Tooth, they began chirping and twittering wildly.

 

Jack jumped from cage to cage, looking into them in concern. “Shh! Keep it down,” He whispered as he jumped onto another cage. “I’m gonna get you out of here, just as soon as I -”

 

“Jack!”

 

He looked away from the mini teeth, searching for the voice.

 

“Jack!”

 

“As I can...” He murmured. He looked to the ground and sees the piles of the Memory Boxes. He lets go of the cage he was on and fell to the piles of Boxes, looking through them for the Box the voice could be coming from.

 

A shadow falls over the cavern and it went darker than before. Jack looked up from his search in confusion, and spots the shadow of Pitch gliding across a column. What the-

 

“Looking for something?” Pitch asked. Jack turned and shot at Pitch with a flash of frost, but Pitch disappeared. Jack jumped over the cages and raced through the cavern, following Pitch’s laugh.

 

As Jack turns a corner he sees the shadow of Pitch across the walls then walk off into a dark corridor. “Don’t be afraid Jack. I’m not going to hurt you.” Pitch’s voice echoed around Jack as he goes along the corridor. “Afraid?” He responded as he watches Pitch cross a bridge on the other side of the cave and goes after him. “I’m not afraid of you!”

 

“Maybe not. But you are afraid of something.” Jack slowly came closer, staff ready. “You think so, huh?”

 

“I know so. It’s the one thing I always know,” Pitch told him and then turned to look at Jack. “People’s greatest fears. Yours is that no one will ever believe in you.” Fear quickly appears in his eyes as he steps back a bit. The chamber flooded with shadows and Jack falls through. He falls right into a wall, which turns out to be the floor.

 

Pitch laughs from somewhere in the cavern.

 

Jack looks around in confusion when he sees the cave’s entrance, and realized he’s right back at the beginning. “Worst of all, you’re afraid you’ll never know why. Why you?” Jack looks and sees that the entrance, and possible the only way out for him is closed with bricks. “Why were you chosen... To be like this?” Pitch’s shadow comes up to him.

 

“Well, fear not, for the answer to that...” Pitch stands in front of Jack, holding out a Memory Box. “Is right here.” Jack’s eyes widened when he sees the face a boy with a mischievous smile and brown hair and eyes etched onto the Box.

 

“Do you want them, Jack? Your memories?” Pitch asked, holding the Box out to him. Jack stares, and reaches his hand out, but pulls it back in, having trouble in making a decision. He closes his eyes to think for a moment, but when he opens them, Pitch is gone.

 

The shadow of Pitch moves across the cavern, Jack following. “Everything you wanted to know...” Pitch said, his face morphing in and out of the shadows. “...In this little Box.” Every time Jack tries to face him, Pitch disappears back into the darkeness.

 

Multiple shadows of Pitch circle Jack, getting closer and closer to him. “Why did you end up like this? Unseen. Unable to reach out to anyone.”

 

“You want the answers so badly. You want to grab them, and fly off with them. But you’re afraid of what the Guardians will think.”

 

 

Jack begins to panic as he’s pushed into a corner. “You’re afraid of disappointing them.” Pitch smiles. “Well let me ease your mind about one thing. They’ll never accept you. Not really.” The shadows come so close to him.

 

“Stop it! Stop it!” Jack cries out, covering his ears trying to block out Pitch’s voice. The shadows back off and Pitch is standing before him. “After all, you’re not one of them.” Pitch continues.

 

“You don’t know what I am!” Jack exclaimed.

 

“Of course I do,” Pitch answered calmly. “You’re Jack Frost. You make a mess wherever you go. Why, you’re doing it right now.” Pitch throws the Memory Box to him, who catches. Fear fills his eyes as he thinks about what Pitch just said. “What did you do?” He asked, horrified.

 

“More to the point Jack, what did you do?” Pitch backs away into the shadows, laughing. Jack runs at him, only to fall into the darkness. “But none of that matters now. After all, how can you do anything when you can’t even leave?” Jack comes up through the shadows in the middle of the cavern, standing below the many bid cages. “Enjoy the heat, Jack.” Jack tries going back to where he last saw Pitch, only to end up back at the bird cages.

 

Then it goes dark. So dark that all he could see was black. “Pitch!” Jack yelled. Then he feels it. It’s getting hotter. He tries to go, anywhere but there, from the dark, from the heat, away from there. But he can’t see. He doesn’t know where he is, where he’s going, or if he’s going anywhere at all.

 

The cavern keeps heating up until Jack was sweating buckets. He couldn’t see it, but he knew the frost on his clothing had melted, his hoodie was soaked through, and his hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat. He sat down, struggling to breathe. The mini teeth chirped frantically.

 

He felt so sluggish and tired, all he wanted to do was sleep, but he knew he shouldn’t. But he didn’t even notice as he fell onto his back. The last thing he heard were his own screams of pain and the sickened splashes as he felt his flesh falling off his bones, and then his bones following.

 

* * *

 

 

When Pitch came back to take care of that pesky winter sprite, he hadn’t been expecting this.

 

Nothing.

 

There was no one there.

 

Just a very large puddle of some type of clear liquid, a wooden stick and a blue hoodie that was quickly being turned into a sponge.

 

This was unexpected. But he could work with this.

 

* * *

 

 

Bunny looks through a bush, watching the Easter Egg Hunt that should be taking place at the moment.

 

“There are no eggs.” One of the children said sadly. “There’s none anywhere.”

 

“I give up. Come on, let’s go.” Another said.

 

“I don’t understand.” A little girl responded. “Maybe he just hid them really well this year.” Bunnymund goes up to them with a basket of eggs. “Kids! Oi!”

 

“I checked everywhere! There’s nothing!” A boy carried on, as if Bunnymund wasn’t there.

 

“Yes there is! There is!” Bunnymund exclaimed as he comes closer. “I mean, these aren’t my best lookin’ googies, but they’ll do in a pinch!” He holds up a cracked Easter Egg. Stares are his reply.

 

“I can’t believe it.” The girl said.

 

“I know!” Bunny said happily.

 

“There’s no such thing as the Easter Bunny.” She continued.

 

“What?”

 

“Easter’s over. Forget this.” A kid said. Bunny looked at them in disbelief*. “No! Wrong! Not, not true! I’m right in front ya, mate!” He says franticaly.

 

“There’s no such thing. I knew it.” The children walked right through Bunnymund, not realizing he was there. Bunnymund stands there, shocked. “Now come on.”

 

“I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t he come?”

 

“Let’s get out of here.”

 

“Easter Bunny, where are you?”

 

“This is the worst Easter ever.”

 

“They don’t see me.” Bunnymund says as he looks after them, stunned. “They don’t see me.”

 

Toothiana flies over to him, trying her best to comfort him. North looks off into the distance.

 

“Jack, where are you?”

 

* * *

 

 

“Quick, this way, this way!” Bunnymund exclaims, and they follow him into an alleyway. “Dead end. Other way, other way!”

 

A laugh comes from behind them. They turn to face the source of the noise, and a shadow of a Nightmare goes across the alleyway.

 

“All this fuss over one little boy. And still he refuses to stop believing.” When lightning strikes it reveals a Nightmare coming closer from the entrance to the alleyway. “Very well. There are other ways to snuff out a light.”

 

The light bulbs in the lamps on the walls burst, and fear floods Jamie’s eyes.

 

“If you want him, you’re gonna have to go through me!” Bunnymund threatens, standing in front of the others and Toothiana and North push Jamie behind them.

 

A shadow finger moves up to Bunnymund, and arm attached, looking as if it was grabbing his back. “Look how fluffy you are! Would you like a scratch behind the ears?” Pitch laughed. Bunnymund hops back, away from the hand, then into North’s arm.

 

“Don’t you even think about it!” Bunnymund said, glaring at the shadow hand.

 

Pitch himself suddenly comes into the alleyway, riding a Nightmare, smiling. “I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see you all like this. You look awful.” His smile grows wider. “But not as bad as poor, poor Jackie.”

 

Horror crosses the remaining Guardians faces. “What did you do to him!” Toothiana demands furiously.

 

“Oh, nothing.” He throws the staff and hoodie to the ground before them. “The heat just got too much for him.”

 

They stared, completely horrified, as the hoodie, soaked with something that was not water, not blood, and the staff that was used to wield such power, now just an old stick on the floor.

 

Pitch laughs.

 

This is hilarious.

 

* * *

 

 

After the fight, and Pitch reduced to nothing more than shadows and sand, the Guardians, including a revived Sanderson, venture into Pitch’s lair to rescue Toothiana’s mini teeth and retrieve the Memory Boxes.

 

When they walk in, the first thing they notice is Baby Tooth, sitting by this large puddle of clear liquid, head in her hands. The teeth tweeted a sad, sorrow tune.

 

When Toothiana spoke with her army, she relayed what they had told her.

 

“Jack was... He heard a voice he remembered. He followed it here, and found out it was coming from his teeth. Pitch and him fought and-” She choked up. North’s held her as she cried. “They said it was so dark, and so hot, that they could barely breathe and they heard the screams, oh North, the screams, the sounds! He melted, North! He felt it all-” She cut herself off, sobbing into North’s coat.

 

Sanderson bowed his head, and if he could cry, he would. Bunnymund sat back on his hunches, ears flattened on his head. North felt tears running down his cheeks.

 

They mourned.

 

Up in the sky, the Man in the Moon did the same. 

 

 

 

_**Vége** _

  

**Author's Note:**

> * Heh, disbelief. Fitting.


End file.
